Taiwan Is Ready to Serve as an Indo-Pacific Partner

The Trump administration’s long-awaited National Security Strategy, which was released on December 18, has provoked a litany of praises as well as criticisms. The spectrum of opinions ranged from effusive endorsement as a “first-rate effort filled with ideas that need to be taken seriously,” to constructive criticisms that highlighted the strategy’s shortcomings for its lack of cohesion in certain areas such as trade policy, to visceral rejection out of hand. To be sure, the Trump administration has been challenged by a lack of consistent messaging about its strategy. Yet despite some dismissive comments about the NSS’s importance, it is a document that serves a significant function, as it reflects what scholar Walter Russell Mead calls the “broad principles and elements of consensus on which the administration will base its work.” In one area, the document deserves particular recognition for its much-needed clarity.

For the first time since the White House began producing the National Security Strategy in 1990, during the George H. W. Bush administration, the 2017 NSS mentioned Taiwan specifically by name and clearly reaffirmed the United States defense commitment to Taiwan. The document stated a U.S. intent to “maintain our strong ties with Taiwan in accordance with our ‘One China’ policy, including our commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide for Taiwan’s legitimate defense needs and deter coercion.” It is a new development for such language to be included in a national-security document of this caliber. However, it bears noting that providing for Taiwan’s defense falls within a long historical pattern of U.S.-Taiwan cooperation, which was most recently reflected in the Trump administration’s decision to approve $1.4 billion in arms sales to Taiwan in June 2017. During the previous administration’s eight years, President Obama approved over $10 billion in military equipment for Taiwan, to provide for Taiwan’s defense needs.

The Obama administration’s 2015 NSS made no mention of Taiwan. Its tone towards China was also significantly different than that of the current 2017 NSS. This is unsurprising, given that the Obama administration’s official policy at the time was to maintain “positive, cooperative, and comprehensive” relations with Beijing. The United States’ approach towards China then can be summarized by text within the 2015 NSS: “The United States welcomes the rise of a stable, peaceful, and prosperous China. We seek to develop a constructive relationship with China that delivers benefits for our two peoples and promotes security and prosperity in Asia and around the world. We seek cooperation on shared regional and global challenges such as climate change, public health, economic growth, and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” However, the 2017 NSS is more clear-eyed about China’s military rise and international behavior. As former senior NSC official Mike Green comments, “There is one element in this NSS that represents a clear departure from the past and may well inform American strategic thinking well into the future: the emphasis on great power competition with China.”